MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (6 page)

Actually
viewing
was a misnomer. What little was left of poor Ed would be cremated.

The funeral director asked, in a solemn voice, what the loved ones wished to do with the ashes. Trying to ignore the ache in her chest, Mary passed the question on to her sister.

It was apparently one decision too many. Kate mutely shook her head.

Mary said into the phone, “Just put them in a nice but not too expensive urn.”

Ed’s parents arrived that afternoon. Michael had left work early to meet their flight at Dulles airport in Washington.

They were in their mid-sixties and, unlike the elder O’Donnells, they’d managed to avoid gaining weight as they’d aged. Slender, silver-haired and well dressed, they were an advertisement for the benefits of membership in the upper middle class–until one noticed the shell-shocked look in their eyes and the gray tinge under the tans they’d so recently been nurturing in the south of France.

Mary quickly assessed the situation. “You must be exhausted,” she murmured and gently took each of them by an elbow to guide them up the stairs to the guest room. She shot a meaningful look at Michael and then at their bags. He took the hint and followed with the luggage, placing it against the wall inside the bedroom door and then fleeing.

“Give me a moment,” Mary said. She gathered her own things and transferred them to the study on the first floor.

When she returned to the guest bedroom, Ed, Sr. was slouched in the armchair in the corner, staring at his knees. His wife was still standing where Mary had let go of her arm, a glazed look in her eye.

Mary pulled fresh sheets for the queen-sized bed from the chest of drawers. Stripping the old ones off and tossing them on the floor, she started to shake out the fitted sheet. Mrs. Huntington suddenly reached out to grab one edge of it. Silently, she helped Mary make up the bed.

Not sure if they had ever stayed at Kate and Ed’s house before, Mary pointed across the room. “Bathroom’s through there.”

Edith Huntington gave Mary a feeble smile that came nowhere near her eyes. Her voice shook as she said, “Thank you.” She shuffled in the direction of the indicated bathroom.

Mary picked up the discarded sheets and left the room, gently closing the door.

~~~~~~~~

Looking back on it later, Kate wasn’t real sure how she’d made it through that evening and the next day. Her father and Mac, with the ready assistance of Jack–and Michael, once he’d had a couple beers to loosen him up–had turned the evening viewing into an old-fashioned Irish wake. Mac snuck several six-packs of Guinness in. Whenever those got low, more miraculously appeared, no doubt from a cooler in his truck.

The O’Donnells and Franklins gravitated to one side of the funeral home, while the Huntingtons and their friends stood around on the other side. Some of Ed, Sr.’s and Edith’s friends shot judgmental looks across the room, when laughter periodically erupted.

Mary and Phyllis made the effort to wander back and forth, attempting to give the impression it was one big, not-so-happy family. Kate, however, couldn’t drum up the energy to go over to her in-laws. She felt bad that they’d lost their only son, but she needed the warmth of her family.

They sat in a loose circle, sipping beer and telling stories about Eddie–his humor, his easy-going smile and how he was always ready to help with whatever needed doing. Jack repeated a joke Eddie had told him. During a lull in the conversation, Michael said softly, “When we lost the baby…” He choked on a suppressed sob. Three years ago, Phyllis had unexpectedly found herself pregnant, long after they’d thought they were done with having children. The baby had been born premature and had lived only two days.

Michael looked around, making sure his wife was out of earshot. “Everybody was focused on helping Phyllis, myself included,” he said so quietly they had to strain to hear him. “But Ed thought to take me aside and ask how I was doing.” He swiped at his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

There was a long pause while everyone struggled with their grief. Then Rob told the story of how Ed had helped him sort out the estate of one of his clients, and had refused to take any fee for his services from the widow.

Lying in bed that night, Kate thought about how Eddie’s helpful nature had gotten him killed. She could have easily taken the car to get the tire replaced. She’d had that afternoon off. But Eddie had insisted, pointing out that the tire store was right up the street from his office.

Irrational anger exploded in her chest.
Why did he have to be so damned nice?

In the next instant, anger was banished by a knife of guilt twisting in her gut. She was the one who was supposed to be dead, not him. Kate wished with all her heart that she were.

CHAPTER SIX

Kate sat on a bench in the soft May sunshine, picking at the carryout crab cake she’d bought and watching the people bustling along the sidewalks of the Inner Harbor in Baltimore City. It was the first Wednesday after her return to work, and the five-week anniversary of Eddie’s death.

Rob was in court that afternoon, which was just as well. Considering how the last one had ended, she wasn’t ready yet to resume their weekly lunches.

Unable to face the long afternoon and evening in her lonely house, Kate had decided to come downtown for a change of scenery and some people watching.

Her boss Sally had encouraged her to take off as much time as she needed, but Kate had been going crazy sitting at home. She was better off working. Each day she was able to put aside her feelings for awhile as she focused on other people’s problems.

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the sun. As it all too often did, her mind wandered back to Eddie’s memorial service. She wasn’t sure if it had been better or worse that there’d been no corpse to view or put in the ground. Theoretically, she understood the psychological purpose of such burial practices. Seeing the body, watching the casket being lowered into the ground–these things helped loved ones break out of their denial so they could let their grief out.

But knowing the theory and living the reality were two different things. At the time, she’d been grateful for the numbness she had felt most of that day.

When her in-laws left the next morning, she’d moved upstairs to the guest room, unable to deal with another night in that empty king-sized bed. And three weeks ago, Rob had helped her pick out a new car, after she’d admitted to herself she would never be able to drive Eddie’s Saturn. The interior would smell like him, and she wasn’t ready to face the little things one leaves in one’s car–his umbrella and gym bag, the power bar wrappers scattered on the floor. She hadn’t traded the car in, however. She wasn’t ready to part with it. It was parked in the dilapidated garage behind the house.

There were a lot of things she wasn’t ready to face yet. But she was letting the grief out, in the privacy of her backyard surrounded by pine trees as tall as the three-story house. She’d bought an Adirondack chair–Google having informed her they were named after the mountain chain in New England where they had originated. Each evening, she sat in it under the trees and just let herself feel.

Tears would stream down her cheeks as she recalled the things she and Eddie had done together. Sometimes a sob would escape. Occasionally she’d chuckle out loud at some joke he’d told her. The neighbors, overhearing these odd noises, probably thought she was nuts, but she knew it was what she needed to do.

Lately she’d started talking to Eddie in her head and imagining what he would say back. It was comforting, as if he were still there with her in a way. She’d decided not to tell anyone about these imaginary conversations however, not even Rob.

Having finished her crab cake, Kate strolled back toward the parking garage on Light Street where she’d parked her new Prius.

Her thoughts turned to the investigation into Eddie’s murder, which seemed to be going nowhere fast. Detective Phillips had been back several times, repeating the same questions as if she might start giving him different answers. Most of those times, Officer Hernandez had been along, writing the same old answers in her notepad. At some point, Phillips would ask, with that smirky tone Kate had grown to hate, if she had seen her
friend
Mr. Franklin lately.

When she turned the tables and asked about the investigation, she got the typical stonewall answers. “The investigation is ongoing. We are following all leads.”

The second time the detective and his shadow had returned had been two days after the memorial service. Kate knew Rob would be angry with her for not calling him, but she hadn’t been able to dredge up the energy to make the call. And she definitely had no desire to sit around making small talk with the obnoxious policeman while they waited for Rob to shake free of his other duties to join them.

Besides, Phillips hadn’t asked her anything she hadn’t already answered. When he’d requested the use of her bathroom, she assumed he wanted to snoop around. Normally such an intrusion would have pissed her off, but that day she was too depressed to care. Once he was out of the room, she’d begged Officer Hernandez to tell her what was going on in the investigation.

The young woman hesitated, then said, “Not much to tell, ma’am. Perp didn’t give us much to go on. Homemade pipe bomb. Not that hard to make. Anyone can find out how on the Internet. If there’s anything you can think of that you haven’t already told us, it might help.”

Kate searched her brain again for anything she could offer, and indeed a new idea occurred to her. She’d told them that she had no enemies, but maybe that wasn’t true.

When Phillips returned to the room, Kate said, “Detective, I don’t know of any personal enemies. But in the work I do, not everyone is happy with me at the end of the day. There are some spouses and abusive parents out there who think I’m the devil incarnate because I helped their mate or grown child stand up to them. Not to mention I’ve reported a few child abusers through the years, some of whom have ended up in jail.”

Phillips nodded to Officer Hernandez and she poised pen over notepad. “And what are the names of these people who might be mad enough to do you harm?”

At that moment, Kate had realized this could go no further. She could give him the names of the abusers she’d reported–that information was already available to him. But she couldn’t break confidentiality and give out details about clients’ cases, on the off chance that someone connected to them might have decided to take revenge against her.

She was ethically and legally required to keep clients’ names and any information about them to herself. Even if she strongly suspected someone connected to a client was Eddie’s murderer, technically she should get the client’s permission before revealing details about the case to the police. Otherwise, she’d risk losing her psychotherapy license.

Although if she actually knew who the killer was, she’d tell the police in a heartbeat and her license be damned.

The ding of the parking garage elevator broke into her reverie. As she stepped off the elevator, she double-checked the aisle number she’d scribbled on the time-stamped ticket.

Three cars away, her steps faltered. She stared dumbfounded at her new Prius. The back window and one of the taillights were shattered.

Assuming it was random vandalism, kids busting out car windows, she looked around. The cars near hers were intact. Confused, her mind searched for some other logical explanation for the damage, as if expecting to see a blown-down tree in the middle of a cement-and-steel parking garage.

She approached her car. The back seat was covered with tiny shards of glass. She looked up at the sound of a car door slamming. A young couple was getting out of a red sports car in the next aisle.

With a jolt, she realized that whoever did this could still be nearby. The young couple’s presence might be the only thing preventing an attack on her. Heart pounding, she almost dropped her keys as she struggled to unlock the door. She scrambled into the driver’s seat, started the car and raced through the garage.

At the cashier’s booth, she stomped on the brakes and threw the ticket along with a twenty-dollar bill at the attendant. Without waiting for change, she shot out into the street, barely missing a car that swerved into the next lane to avoid her.

A few blocks away, the after-shocks hit her. She was trembling so badly she had to pull over to the curb. Too late, she realized she should have been concerned about another car bomb. But she’d felt so vulnerable in the parking garage, all she could think about was getting out of there.

Digging her phone out of her purse, she tried to call Rob’s cell. Shaky fingers hit the wrong numbers. She had to start again. It went straight to voicemail. He must still be in court.

“Hi, it’s me. Somebody broke my window. In my car. Actually the whole back window.” Realizing how inane this message was sounding, she ended with, “Call me when you get a chance.”

Knuckles rapped against her side window. She jumped, hitting her head on the ceiling of the car.

A thirty-something Baltimore City police officer was standing there, a combination of concern and suspicion on his brown face. She realized she’d pulled into and was blocking a bus-stop area. She lowered the window.

The officer asked for her license, then got a better look at her pale face. “Are you all right, lady?”

Halfway through an incoherent attempt at an explanation, Kate gave up and asked the officer to contact Detective Phillips in Baltimore County and ask him to meet her at her house.

The officer nodded, his eyes still worried. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ve got to give you an inspection notice on that busted taillight. You’ve got thirty days to get the repairs done. I’ll give you the number of the vandalism report, for your insurance company.”

While he went back to his cruiser to write the inspection notice, Kate took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. By the time the officer returned and handed her the notice, she was able to shift the car into gear and steer carefully back into traffic.